Casper Family Foundation

Casper Family Foundation is a brand-new, closely held family foundation — tax-exempt only since November 2025, founded and controlled by Robert Casper (President/Treasurer/Director) and Arlene Casper (Secretary/Director), with Jill Luton and Kelly Keeler rounding out the board. There is no history of prior grant cycles, no published RFP, no online application portal, and no public grantee list to study, so applicants are essentially approaching a funder still building its process rather than following an established playbook. The foundation's own site frames its purpose around Christian-influenced giving principles and three stated pathways — arts, religious initiatives, and educational programs — layered on top of the broader 'empowering organizations that uplift and enhance our communities' language filed with the IRS. That combination suggests the Caspers favor mission-driven, values-aligned organizations (faith-based nonprofits, arts institutions, and education-focused nonprofits) over broad-based social services, though with zero disclosed grantees this cannot yet be confirmed from giving history. Given the family-run structure with no compensated staff, the realistic relationship progression is informal: a short introductory email to info@casperfamilyfoundation.org, not a formal LOI-to-full-proposal pipeline. First-time applicants should treat this as a relationship-building funder rather than a competitive-RFP funder — expect the Caspers to fund organizations they discover, are introduced to, or vet directly, consistent with many first- and second-year family foundations before they formalize an application process. Because the foundation is based in Wichita, Kansas and describes itself as serving 'the Heartland,' Kansas- and regional Midwest-based nonprofits (or national organizations with a Wichita-area chapter or program) are the most plausible fit geographically. Applicants should keep initial outreach short, lead with mission alignment to arts, faith, or education, and be prepared for a slower, more personal vetting process than a staffed foundation would offer.

Hard grant-level data is not yet available — this foundation has disclosed no itemized grantee list in the platform's database, and it has filed only two Form 990-PFs to date. What can be reconstructed from its financial filings: in fiscal year 2024 (its founding year), the foundation received $5,000,000 in contributions and made zero disbursements, indicating pure capitalization with no grantmaking activity yet. In fiscal year 2025 (filed May 13, 2026), total revenue was $5,218,532 (95.8% from contributions, 3.6% from dividends, 0.6% from asset sales), while total expenses were $1,215,551, of which $1,166,106 (95.9%) went to charitable disbursements — its first year of actual grantmaking. Net assets stand at $9,002,981 as of the most recent filing, with income of $6,276,136 reported to the database. If the ~$1.17M in FY2025 disbursements was spread across even a modest number of grants (say 10-30, typical for a new family foundation's first active year), median grant size would fall somewhere in the $40,000-$115,000 range, though this is an estimate, not a disclosed figure — no per-grant amounts are publicly available. The trajectory (from $0 to ~$1.2M in disbursements within one filing year, on a $9M asset base generating over $6M in reported income) suggests disbursements could scale meaningfully in FY2026 if the foundation moves toward the ~5% IRS payout minimum for private foundations, which on a $9M asset base would suggest an annual target closer to $450,000, well below what was actually disbursed in FY2025 — implying the family may be front-loading its early giving. Geographic and program-area breakdowns cannot be determined from available data; no grantee list, no program-area tags, and no financial detail beyond aggregate disbursement totals exist in current filings.

All five identified peers sit within roughly $1,000-$3,000 of Casper Family Foundation's $9,002,981 asset base and share its 'Philanthropy & Grantmaking' NTEE classification — this is a database-matched peer set built purely on asset size and category rather than confirmed programmatic similarity, and none has disclosed website, grantee, or application-process data in this bundle either. This pattern (a cluster of small, single-family, low-visibility foundations with near-identical asset levels around $9M and no public grant history) is typical of family foundations that are recently established or that operate entirely through personal networks rather than open applications — Casper's public-facing website and stated focus areas (arts, religious, education) actually put it slightly ahead of this peer group in transparency, since none of the five peers even list a website in the available data.

The single verifiable recent milestone is procedural but significant: the foundation's IRS ruling date is November 2025, meaning it only became a recognized 501(c)(3) private foundation in the last several months, despite already holding a $5M initial contribution from fiscal year 2024. Its most recent Form 990-PF, covering fiscal year 2025, was filed May 13, 2026, and shows the foundation's first year of active charitable disbursement: $1,166,106 distributed against $5.2M in revenue, growing net assets to just over $9M. No news coverage, press releases, grant announcements, or media mentions of the Casper Family Foundation of Wichita, Kansas were found in web searches conducted in July 2026 — searches for the name repeatedly surfaced unrelated organizations (a Milwaukee-based William J. & Gertrude R. Casper Foundation, the Casper, Wyoming philanthropic community, and Casper College Foundation in Wyoming), underscoring that this is a low-profile, non-media-facing family foundation. No leadership changes, program launches, or public grant announcements have been reported. Given the foundation only began active grantmaking in its FY2025 filing period, the most useful frame for outreach timing is that this organization is still in its first full grantmaking cycle — a window when family foundations are often most open to being introduced to new organizations as they build out their giving portfolio.

There is no published RFP, application form, deadline calendar, or LOI process for the Casper Family Foundation — applicants should not expect a portal-based system like larger institutional funders use. The only public contact channel is info@casperfamilyfoundation.org, listed on both the homepage and contact page. Given the foundation's website language emphasizing Christian-influenced giving principles and its three stated pathways — arts, religious initiatives, and educational programs — organizations whose missions clearly map to at least one of these three areas should say so explicitly and early in any outreach; generic 'community uplift' framing is likely to underperform against language that mirrors the foundation's own stated values. Because the board is a small, unpaid family group (Robert Casper, Arlene Casper, Jill Luton, Kelly Keeler) with no program officer or grants staff on record, initial contact should be a brief, personal email rather than a lengthy formal proposal — treat the first message as a relationship-opening introduction, not a full application, and be prepared to be asked for a short mission overview, budget snapshot, and a specific funding ask before any formal review occurs. The most common mistake with funders at this early stage is over-formalizing outreach (submitting a full grant proposal unsolicited) when the more effective approach is a warm or semi-warm introduction — through a Wichita-area or Kansas nonprofit network, a mutual board connection, a faith community connection, or a direct, concise inquiry that respects the fact this is a small, personally-run foundation still shaping its process. Given the foundation is Wichita, Kansas-based and self-describes as serving 'the Heartland,' organizations with a demonstrable Kansas or regional Midwest presence (even as a program site of a national nonprofit) should lead with that geographic tie. Optimal timing: given the FY2025 filing (covering the period that ended before the May 2026 filing date) already shows over $1.1M disbursed, outreach in mid-to-late 2026 should target the foundation's next active giving cycle, but applicants should not expect a published deadline — timing appears to be at the family's discretion.